Christians of all types and shapes generally agree: Jesus saves. I understood that at baptism when I joined the church. However, a little bit tragically, it took me until I was a theology student, formally studying for the ministry, to fully understand how He saved me. It is great to know you are saved, but misunderstanding the process of saving often leads to theological confusion and unbalance.
The Bible declares;
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Ephesians 2:8-10
Here are the three stages of this process:
Justification:
Justification is a one-time event that occurs when a lost sinner asks for God’s forgiveness and God imputes the merits of Jesus Christ on the sinner declaring the sinner to be righteous.
Generally, most Christian traditions (especially evangelical traditions) refer to this step in the process as “being saved.”
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Romans 5:1
“So that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” Titus 3:7
“For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.” Romans 3:28
Justification, therefore, is a free gift of God’s grace and cannot be earned by being good, by keeping the Law, or by doing kind deeds for God or man. It is literally God freeing us from the penalty of sin. It occurs only because a sinner, under the prevenient grace[i] of the Holy Spirit, comes to understand they are woefully lost, heading for destruction, and cannot change their fate no matter how hard they try – unless God Himself intervenes in their life. It is a cry in the darkness for a God of the light, to reach down and save us from our own sinful nature. It is an act of faith, in believing that God will save us because Jesus died in our place on the cross. When we are justified, we are surrendered to God in a willful repentance of sin and the ability to cure ourselves. It is as the classic hymn says, “to wholly lean on Jesus’ name.”[ii] It is literally God freeing us from the penalty of sin.
Sanctification:
Sanctification can be summed up as God’s continual freeing us from the power of sin in our lives. Sin, as a power, seeks to drag us back into the darkness that justification saved us from. God, through the indwelling power of His Holy Spirit, seeks to grow us up more daily. We are saved in a moment (justification) but we grow for a lifetime (sanctification).
“Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Thessalonians 5:23
“According to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.” 1 Peter 1:2
“Moreover, I gave them my Sabbaths, as a sign between me and them, that they might know that I am the LORD who sanctifies them.” Ezekiel 20:12
Sanctification is often called holiness because it is the growth process into holiness. However, it is key to understand, just as Ezekiel says, it is “the LORD who sanctifies.” Some Christians mistakenly think that Justification (being saved) is what God does and that Sanctification (being made holy) is what we do. But the truth is, both Justification and Sanctification are both works that God does in you as you yield yourself to Him. We are saved by grace through faith, both in justification and sanctification. The Bible promises us that the same God who began a good work in us will also finish it (Philippians 1:6).
Glorification:
Glorification is the final development stage in the process, when God transforms our nature forever – taking away the “power of sin” forever. This happens at the second coming of Christ when our sinful natures are taken away and the struggle is finally over. We are no longer being declared holy, or made holy; we are holy, and therefore glorified with God, in Christ.
“It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed.” 1 Corinthians 15:52
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.” Philippians 3:20-21
“And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him.” Hebrews 9:27-28
Finally, we will be free from the power of sin and this corrupted mortal body and be forever transformed by the very presence of God to forever live in the Kingdom with him. Gone will be sin, suffering, and best of all, temptation. We will have seen sin, struggled with sin, and have been delivered from sin, and will never go down that road again!
John Newton summed it up nicely for us when he put the salvation process this way,
“I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.”[iii]
God’s Amazing Grace takes us for eternity into glorification that is beyond what our human minds can even yet understand. We are saved in a moment, grow for a lifetime, and give glory forever, all because Jesus made atonement at the cross for us. We were sinners, deserving death. He was perfect, deserving eternity; yet he traded places with us in our death, to give us His life. “Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves.”[iv] The theological term for this is subsidiary atonement (also in some traditions called vicarious atonement) and it is the idea that the perfect life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ replaces our broken, sinful life and needful death, for all of eternity, when we accept it at justification.
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
And that is the point of all three stages of the salvation process as outlined in the Bible. God is making us, who accept the atonement of Jesus in faith, to be restored into the very Glory of the righteousness of God, for which fallen humankind will take on learning and embracing into eternity.
Christians of all types and shapes generally agree: Jesus saves. I understood that at baptism when I joined the church. However, a little bit tragically, it took me until I was a theology student, formally studying for the ministry, to fully understand how He saved me. It is great to know you are saved, but misunderstanding the process of saving often leads to theological confusion and unbalance.
God’s Amazing Grace takes us for eternity into glorification that is beyond what our human minds can even yet understand. We are saved in a moment, grow for a lifetime, and give glory forever, all because Jesus made atonement at the cross for us. We were sinners, deserving death. He was perfect, deserving eternity; yet he traded places with us in our death, to give us His life. “Christ was treated as we deserve, that we might be treated as He deserves.”[iv] The theological term for this is subsidiary atonement (also in some traditions called vicarious atonement) and it is the idea that the perfect life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ replaces our broken, sinful life and needful death, for all of eternity, when we accept it at justification.
